- [Tom] On this awesome episode of "UTR," we discover the blue on Michigan's Thumbcoast.

We'll tour a ship that shines, partake in some performing arts, and get a heaping helping of history.

Heck, we'll even take you to the tropics, Michigan style.

Get ready to explore the cool people, places, and things that make our Thumbcoast the absolute most.

(lively music) - [Bikers] Woo-hoo.

- [Narrator] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

- I've been around the world, but there's one place I keep coming back to and the more I explore, the more I realize it's the place to be.

I'm Tom Daldin and this is "Under the Radar Michigan."

(upbeat music) (music continues) (swishing) Now we all know that our great state has over 3,000 miles of freshwater coastline, but some of the miles that I love the most are along Michigan's beautiful Thumbcoast.

Still works.

Because whether you like to fish, float, boat, or just be at the beach, our Thumbcoast has about every way you could want to become one with the water.

Yep, all along the coast, you'll find a string of cool cities and towns that offer everything you need for lakeside or riverside living.

There's excellent eating, stylish staying, and plenty of playing.

From cool cosmopolitan cities like Port Huron, to lovely little destination getaways like Lexington, you'll encounter more ways to enjoy Lake Huron than you can count.

Heck, if you make it all the way up to Port Austin, you can even kayak all the way out to Turnip Rock.

Pretty cool.

Not to mention enjoy this hopping and happening little town.

And this part of Michigan really does have its own unique and relaxed vibe, lifestyle and mindset that says, feel the water, enjoy our towns and love your life.

It's the perfect place to discover your next "UTR" type adventure, so I say we get started right now.

Michigan's fantastic and fun Thumbcoast starts with some of the great little towns along the north side of Lake St. Clair and runs all the way up to the very tip of the thumb with tons more little towns and villages along the wonderful way.

(swishing) Now on this "UTR" Thumbcoast adventure, we're gonna start in Port Huron and head south along the St. Clair River.

And we're gonna look for really cool stuff along the way.

And you know us, I bet we find plenty.

And in Port Huron, we sure found a dandy right here at Pine Grove Park.

It's Lightship 103, also known as the Huron.

It's one of a small number of preserved historic American lightships that you can still tour today.

So after getting permission to come aboard, I buddied up with Andrew Kercher to find out more about this floating phenomenon.

Andrew, look how cool that is.

The ship going under the bridge, that is so cool.

- You don't see it anywhere else in the state.

- And speaking of cool, you're making me look like a slouch.

I mean, your outfit is awesome.

I mean, it's like 20 skidoo, dude.

- Well, thanks, I do my best.

I always say that brand recognition is important.

And so whoever bought this tie 80 years ago, I'm keeping it going.

- And speaking of keeping things going, what a treasure this is, and the fact that you're keeping this ship going and it's memory alive, the history alive.

I've been driving by this ship in Port Huron for years now and I've always wondered about it.

So I went home and I googled it and it said, Huron Lightship 103.

And I thought, lightship, what?

For people that don't understand, as I didn't, what a lightship is?

- You can best describe it in two words.

Floating lighthouse.

- Oh, okay.

- I mean, we could spend a lot more words on it, but that was the idea was there were some places on the Great Lakes and some places on the coasts as well where it was impractical or too expensive to build a lighthouse, but they still needed that aid to navigation for vessels.

So shoals are a commonplace, and that's where the Huron was actually stationed for most of its career.

- [Tom] Well, when was the ship built?

- [Andrew] So the ship that we're on right now, this is actually the third Huron to be on that same location.

This ship was built, laid down in 1920, commissioned in 1921.

So it's just a little over a hundred years old.

- Wow.

So for how many years did this ship service the Great Lakes?

- So the whole career on the Great Lakes and from 1935 it was stationed right here until 1970, this was an active duty vessel.

That's one of the things that's kinda unique about with the Blue Water Area and Lower Lake Huron for many decades, people remembered one of those things you saw was this was the last lake ship on the Great Lakes.

- So what happened in 1970 that retired the ship?

- Yeah, so the Coast Guard was constantly thinking of ways.

This was expensive to maintain.

It's a whole ship.

You have to have a crew, you rotate the crew.

That's a lot.

And most of those other places had been lighthouses are automated.

Automation is eventually what did it in.

They were finally able to build a buoy.

So we've got buoy number seven.

- Buoys did it.

- Yeah, this is a big one.

- The great buoy invasion of 1970.

- It's actually the biggest buoy on the Great Lakes is the one that replaced this ship on the Corsica Shoals.

So that's about three miles north of the Blue Water Bridge.

- So during the shipping season, they would take this out, anchor it near a shoal, or someplace to warn the big ships.

Would the crew stay aboard?

- They would and they would rotate.

So at any given time you might have six or seven guys on board of a crew of, like, 11 men, and some are gonna be rotating.

They have liberty.

They're able to being just three miles away, take a little ship in, get a couple days off, you know, they might live here in town and when they come back they bring, you know, mail and fresh milk, that kind of thing.

And so the guys who are on here, there was always work to be done, but it would've been pretty boring work 'cause they're not going anywhere, it's amazing.

The engines are in pristine condition and they've been restored, but they only have, they're diesel engines, they only have a couple hundred hours on 'em 'cause you make two trips a year.

- When can people come?

Is it seasonal, is it?

- Yeah, so we are technically seasonal, but we're only closed at the very beginning of the year.

So we run from April through to November and from Memorial Day onto a couple weeks past Labor Day, we're open seven days a week 10:00 to 5:00.

- Well, the Huron is part of the Port Huron Museum system, correct?

- Yes, so we have four sites at the Port Huron Museums.

We are just a mile away from the Fort Gratiot Light Station.

Just same hours.

So, also, open seven days a week in the summer.

And we're just half a mile from the Thomas Edison Depot Museum.

Thomas Edison grew up just a couple hundred yards from where we're standing right now.

So you can learn all about him.

And we have a more traditional museum at our Carnegie Library Museum, which is in Downtown Port Heron.

- Well, thanks for allowing us onboard.

I really appreciate it.

I love boats, I love the water, I love ships.

I always wanted a boat, but my kids wanted to go to college.

- (laughs) Well, this is all the fun of, you know, boat ownership without any of the hassle.

We take care of that for you.

- Oh, okay, fire it up.

Well, with a Mariana Trench amount of maritime info mashed into my mind, I took some time to tour every inch of this historic and valued vessel.

Absolutely fascinating.

And when you think back on the countless brave people who ventured out in these often unforgiving waters to keep crews and cargoes safe, it really gives you a deep appreciation for their incredible efforts and sacrifices.

If you love the Great Lakes like I do, the Lightship Huron really is a boat you need to board, but as for us, we're jumping ship, 'cause it's time to head south and continue our Thumbcoast adventure.

And I have to say, the fun thing about this trip is that as you travel down along M-29, you almost never lose sight of the water.

And you see mighty Great Lakes freighters passing all along the way.

I just love this part of Michigan.

(swishing) Well, the next stop on our Thumbcoast adventure took us into the city of St. Clair.

Now this is the kinda small town that once found, you'll wanna hang around.

You'll see some absolutely beautiful homes on the water, parks for picnicking, and a beautiful boardwalk right on the river.

There's also a variety of shops and eateries worth your while, but, personally, we came for the arts, the performing arts that is.

That's right, when it comes to live theater, the Thumbcoast is someplace you might wanna live because thanks to some very dedicated people, this part of our great state is becoming a performing arts destination.

The newest addition to this creative conquest is the beautiful Boardwalk Theater here in St. Clair.

And to make sure we don't miss our curtain call, I arranged for a dress rehearsal with co-founder and fan of the arts, Kathy Vertin.

Okay, the first question I have for you is an obvious one.

Now is stage left, is stage left to the left of the person on the stage, or is it?

- Yes.

- Oh, it is, so if you say exit stage left, that's?

- My left, but it's the audience's right.

- Okay, finally, I've cracked that.

I've always wondered.

Well, walk me through it.

You started 10 years ago with one little theater.

- Yeah, 2013, we went looking for where are we gonna put it?

We knew it was gonna be somewhere on the Thumbcoast, and drove up and down the coastline.

There was this little building for sale and I said, that's it, that's our Snug Theater.

A little storefront in downtown Marine City.

So we just, you know, gutted it, kept the really interesting elements and put in a 98 seat venue.

- And then you moved to, then you got another theater?

- Yes, the following year, actually, we were selling out, well, you know, 98 seats and we thought it would take time to build an audience, but they came.

So the bank building, the old Marine Savings Bank, I think it was called, it was built in 1918.

- [Tom] Hence the name.

- Yes, Riverbank.

So we said, you know, that's for sale.

It's never gonna open as anything.

It's perfect because it has limited windows.

It's perfect for a theater.

So we said, let's do another one, and then we'll just pop between the two venues.

And we did six shows our first season at The Snug.

So we said, well, we'll do six at Riverbank.

And Brittany, our artistic director here says, "That was the year that almost killed us."

12 productions.

- The live theater aspect movies are great, but when there's real flesh and blood on that stage, it's just I always say people, if you've never been to live theater.

or you haven't been in a long time, go.

It just makes you feel alive again.

- It does, and you never know, I mean, it's professional theater.

So we do, you know, set the show, and technically it's supposed to be the same performance every night, but things happen.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah, they do happen.

I mean, we once had an actor flip his cane and it caught the edge of a woman's wig on stage, and the wig went flying in the audience.

And there she was sitting in a wig cap.

You don't get that from a movie.

- No, no.

- So, and the audience just roared, you know, so you just, there's something about that whole live component.

- These are big production numbers and these people come in from all over, correct, the actors?

- They do, they do.

We just had in one of our productions, a couple of guys in from New York.

They were twin brothers and we housed them.

And we do, we cast a lot of local talent.

Michigan's got an incredible talent base.

I've really been impressed with what we've seen from the, I'll say southeastern Michigan market primarily, but we do bring in from out of state when we need to because we want the right person in the role.

- And all three theaters are running different plays, correct?

- Yes.

- [Tom] Okay, yeah.

- Right now they're not running simultaneously.

There's a little bit of overlap.

We have a one week overlap between productions this year, but going forward, we're hoping to have all three.

- Your staff's wonderful.

- They are.

- The building's amazing.

I am so glad you and your husband decided to retire young because, I mean, look at the energy that it took to do this over the last decade.

I mean, bravo, bravo.

(applauds) - Thank you, but we love it, we really do, we love it.

It's been good for us.

Keep us busy, keep us engaged, keep us young.

- There you go, there you go.

I wrote a play it's called The Village Idiot.

I'm the star if you wanna, if you wanna I can perform it here for you if you want.

- Well, we do like to do new works.

Our little Snug Theater that's what we're.

- Read it first.

(laughs) - Okay.

- The Boardwalk Theater really is a huge accomplishment and creative shining star for the city of St. Clair and the entire Thumbcoast.

And an evening here will be an experience you'll not soon forget.

Not to mention The Snug and Riverbank Theaters in Marine City.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Nothing in the world makes you feel more alive than live theater.

So make it a date and don't be late because after the show, I guarantee you'll see that the Thumbcoast is a place you'll wanna go.

Don't you know?

Doh.

(swishing) And speaking of going somewhere, it's time to go south on 29 again and onto the next part of our Thumbcoast adventure.

And since we mentioned Marine City in our last segment, we headed for the town of the very same name.

Yep, if you're a "UTR" fan, you know that we've been here before because Marine City is, as you heard, a purveyor of the arts, has great little pocket parks right on the river, and tons of cool shops and restaurants for you to discover.

And as a side note, my wife and I come here all the time because of their array of awesome antique shops.

It's also a great place to go where you can sit and watch the mighty Great Lakes freighters float by so close, you could almost reach out and touch 'em.

Oh my gosh, here comes one now.

Just a little farther, almost there.

Ah, I'm touching your freighter.

I'm touching your freighter.

Oh, and for even more fun, they've got their own really cool little lighthouse right on the water for convenient photo ops, bonus, but what about the history of this cool walkable little riverside sensation?

Well, for that, we went to the Lester House and checked in with local historian, Sandy Brown.

You know, Sandy sitting here talking to you, I almost feel like I'm talking to Marine City royalty.

I mean, your family has been here so long and has put such a mark on this community it's like, should I curtsy?

(laughs) I mean, your great-great-grandfather, I didn't realize 'til I did my research that this house was built by your great-great-grandfather.

- And actually his father is the one that came to Marine City and his father in 1823, and he was actually the first sawyer that was on the Belle River.

And most people don't even know that a sawyer is the guy that saws logs.

- Oh, thank you for telling me because I was doing my research I read that, I'm like, I should probably ask her what that means.

- And young David was, like, 12, who went to a private school in Detroit growing up, but eventually went out and scouted timber for all the shipbuilding that went on here.

- Speaking of just the architecture, I mean, what classic style is the house?

- Well, the original structure was a Greek Revival, which is basically one and a half stories.

Very small, very tiny.

And it occupied just that corner of the house.

Later on the house was added onto it.

It turned into an Italianate style, which is where the house is symmetrical.

So you can look at the model, or you can look at Italianate style houses.

The windows are exactly equal.

The front door is totally centered on the house.

And that's what Italianate style is.

- We should mention, too, that during the Great Depression that this sort of fell out of the family's hands, and into ruin, but your father then stepped in, correct?

- Eventually in 1936, they lost the house due to the Great Depression.

At that point in time, converted this into apartments.

- Oh, I can't imagine this being cut up into apartments.

Oh my gosh.

- Oh yeah, it was pretty bad.

And it stayed apartments for years and years, but my dad and mom came in here and decided to restore.

Now we had no blueprints, no drawings.

The only thing that we had were the memories of a seven-year-old.

And that's how old my father was when he moved out of the house that he remembered.

- [Tom] He did it from the memory, that's fascinating.

- There were no pictures, no nothing.

I mean, very few.

Nothing of the interior of the house.

It was just exterior type stuff, so.

And he remembered a lot.

I mean, he knew where the fireplaces that were boarded up were.

And he knew where the staircase to the attic was.

And, I mean, he knew a lot of stuff and he had lots of memories, but yet he was still a very young boy when the family moved out.

- Well, now you can tour this amazing historical home.

And you could also get married here?

- We do tours.

I do tours basically by appointment.

You call me up, the phone number is up.

- Hi Sandy.

- Yeah, can I come Saturday at two o'clock?

Sure.

And I tell you how much it is.

It's a very nominal fee.

And then normally the tour takes about an hour to an hour and a half to go through.

- So you can get married here?

- And we do weddings, we've done bridal showers, we've done baby things.

- The wine cellar.

- The wine cellar.

- The wine cellar is spectacular if they have a private wine tasting down there.

- We've done that.

We did a murder mystery here.

We've done a couple of those.

We've done 'em on the side patio.

- One last question.

Do you think your great-great-grandpa is still in the house?

- Well, Todd teases me about my mother being here.

- Right.

- But no, I don't think the house is haunted.

- Okay, good 'cause I get a-scared.

- No.

- I don't respond well to spooky behavior.

(laughs) Well, like the old saying goes, you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been.

And there's no better way to do that than to go to fascinating historical sites like the Lester House here in Marine City.

If you really wanna get to know an area, study its rich history.

And when you're done, do what we always do on "UTR."

Get something really good to eat.

And that's exactly what we're gonna do in our next segment.

Please stand by.

(swishing) So once again, we headed south and in mere minutes we hit the northern shores of beautiful Lake St. Claire.

Yay, shallow and warm water.

Then we took a hard right and headed for the tropics, the Michigan tropics that is, and to a restaurant that'll make you feel as though, well, you've got your feet in the sand south of sunny Saint Croix.

Yep, this is the Island Grill Clubhouse at Mayea Marina in Fair Haven.

And it's one of the best places on Lake St. Clair to quaff some potent potables, cool your hot self off, and conquer some colorful and creative conch inspired cuisine.

And speaking of creative, if you drive here, the best way to get out to this cool cantina is to be chauffeur shuttled out in your very own little motorized cart.

It's too cool for a school of tropical fish.

So we loaded up all the equipment and headed out for fun and food.

(swishing) Well, after we went back for gym, oops, we enjoyed a short ride through a marvelous marina to our final destination.

That's right, paradise.

And after giving the place a quick little walk around, you know me, I'm nosey.

I sat down with Jim Elder to find out how the heck he carried the entire Caribbean all the way up to Michigan.

Dude, do you mind if I call you dude?

- I don't care, people called me a lot worse.

(both laugh) - You did everything right.

This place is, I think my blood pressure's dropped 20 points since I got here.

First of all, I love the fact that you park your car, a really nice young lady picks you up in these little carts and all of a sudden you're just sort of slowly taken into the tropics, into the Michigan tropics.

Was that your concept?

- Yes, it was.

I've lived in the Florida Keys probably for the last 50 years.

And I didn't wanna build just a standard sports bar type restaurant on the lake.

I wanted a destination and an experience for people.

A destination to go do by boat or car, and an experience once you get here, just not eat food.

- Yeah, I mean, did you, like, find a little tropical restaurant around there, and, like, tie an anchor around, you know, tie a rope around it and pull it?

- Oh, there was nothing here, I built the whole thing.

- Really?

- [Jim] Yeah.

- Did all this stuff come from the tropics?

- It all came from the Keys.

I either personally drove it up or had it trucked up.

- And people do the most creative things, wonderful things when they retire.

- Well, that's what happened.

I knew I was gonna retire.

So 10 years before I retired I bought this rundown marina.

And I said it needs something to attract people here so I can fill it up.

Nobody's ever done well here.

So I said it needs a restaurant.

And initially I was gonna put a restaurant up in the front and have a year-round restaurant, but then I'm not retired, so I wanted something seasonal.

That way come October I can turn the key and just go for it and let everybody have the winter off.

- It is funny, though, how people when they do retire, then all of a sudden they do their passion.

They do the most extraordinary, awesome things.

- I love boats, I love being around the water.

I was raised on Lake St. Clair.

I've had a lot of opportunities to move, other opportunities, but this is my home and I love it.

- I'm a big fan of people that do a few things really well as opposed to trying to do.

You go to restaurants and the menu is 15 pages, you know.

You know, there's something in here that's not gonna be good.

- [Jim] We have a half a dozen entrees, a half a dozen different sandwiches, some appetizers, a few salads, and that's it.

- Yeah, I saw you got a Cuban sandwich, yes, please.

(both laugh) And, again, you're seasonal, so when are you here?

- We open a week before Memorial Day and we close a week after Labor Day.

- Awesome.

And I have to say, the young ladies that run the shuttle from the parking lot up here and back are extraordinary.

They're wonderful, wonderful young ladies.

- Everybody here, they're all high school kids or college kids because they wanna work for the summer.

And the amazing thing is we get so many new employees every year we start up every year brand new, but these young kids learn so fast today it amazes me.

- Yeah.

- Two weeks into this they got it down pat.

And I've got one girl that started here when she was 19.

She's 32 now, she runs my office, been with me 10 years.

- I love guys like you.

- That's what it's all about.

- You mentor young people and then once, then you give 'em an opportunity.

- That's what it's all about.

You gotta teach 'em good work ethics.

And then open that window for 'em so they see opportunity.

When they see that, you'd be surprised how many go for it.

- Well, like I said, dude, you're doing everything, everything right.

- Thank you.

- I've been waiting to taste this.

Oh yeah, I'm in the tropics now.

- They claim this is the best rum runner from here to Florida.

- I believe you.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, this is awesome.

Well, after a whole lot of talking about the tropics, time was a-wasting, and it was time for Tommy, well, to start tasting.

So we ordered, ate and drank our way all the way to Jamaica.

This place is a blast.

So if you're in need of a quick tropical getaway and you wanna avoid airports and packing, come start drinking and snacking at Island Grill Clubhouse at the Mayea Marina in Fair Haven.

It's a fair bet that if you do, you'll be back again.

And if you're looking for a fun and exciting new "UTR" type adventure, venture up and/or down Michigan's beautiful Thumbcoast.

Trust me, once you've been here a couple of times, you'll be all thumbs up.

And the fine folks who live here will love you for it.

Yep, still works.

(lively music) - [Bikers] Woo-hoo.

- [Narrator] A visit to the Stahls Auto Collection will take you back to a time when cars were more than just a way to get around.

A fantastic assortment of gas pumps, neon signs, and automated music machines dating back 150 years that must be seen and heard.

Info at stahlsauto.com.

(upbeat music) (music continues) (music continues) (bright music)